Editorial: D.A. Berberian deserves credit for leading murder trial

Marin District Attorney Edward Berberian (center) flanked by Novato police Sgt. Keith Heiden (left) and Novato Chief Joseph Kreins, speak during a press conference on June 16, 2009, to discuss the indictments of six suspects in the August 2008 murder of Tong Van Le.

TONG VAN LE was an immigrant from war-torn Vietnam who rebuilt his life in America. He arrived with no money and little command of English.

He worked to be able to buy a San Francisco liquor store and to buy a home in Novato for his wife and two children.

After his store was robbed in 2008, he stepped forward — not backward as so many others might have done — and helped police identify the robber.

From behind bars, the suspect ordered the killing and silencing of Le.

Le, 44, was murdered in the garage of his home, a place where he should have been able to feel safe and secure.

His death was an assault on justice and civic responsibility. Admirably, Le had taken both seriously.

Marin District Attorney Ed Berberian was absolutely right to pursue this case, to send a clear message to those who have no respect for the law and humanity. In fact, to his credit, Berberian decided to lead this case himself.

His involvement and the punishment he won of the four men involved in Le's killing send that message.

"Mr. Le put his faith in our legal system, our justice system, and he lost his life," Berberian told the court.

Le put his trust in our justice system because it was the right thing to do.

He deserved justice.

Two of the men, the 23-year-old who ordered the killings and a 21-year-old who prosecutors said pulled the trigger, were sentenced to spend their lives behind bars without possibility of parole. The 21-year-old brother of the man who ordered the killing and another 21-year-old who was in the car when the killers drove to Le's Novato home were sentenced to 26 years to life in prison.

They will spend decades of their young lives behind bars. By their decisions and actions, they have chosen lives without the freedoms and opportunities available to them beyond prison. They are paying the price for demonstrating a lack of respect for human life and the law.

Their lawyers urged Judge Terrence Boren to hand down lesser sentences, claiming their clients were the products of San Francisco's housing projects and lives of poverty and violence.

Boren eloquently responded, as he handed down the sentences, "Mr. Le is an example of someone who went through horrors and managed to find the right path."

It was a long and complicated trial.

Berberian, his prosecution team and Novato police deserve credit for seeing that this case was so important to our system of justice.

They would never be able to make up for the Le family's loss, but they were able to make sure that the system, the one in which Le placed his faith, would not abandon him and the pursuit of justice.